The Politics of Names among Chinese Indonesians in Java

Abstract

Many Chinese Indonesians under the age of 45 in Java have names that are instantly recognized by Indonesians as distinctively Chinese Indonesian. Such names, e.g., Nick Wijaya, commonly consist of a first name that is English or European and a family name that “sounds Indonesian,” was coined after 1965, and contains a syllable from a traditional Chinese surname. Distinctively Chinese Indonesian names are explained in terms of state and ethnic politics in Indonesia during the second half of the 20th century. A specific attribute of proper names that we call their “duality of meaning”—they are fixed to a person like a label at the same time that they continue to signify as more general linguistic signs—makes them particularly potent for social‐identity negotiations. Giving Western first names and using newly coined surnames containing Chinese elements has served both as a form of resistance to discriminatory Indonesian state assimilation policies and as a form of boundary‐marking for ethnic Chinese, who make up less than four percent of the Indonesian population. Western names connote cosmopolitan educational and socioeconomic aspirations for many Chinese Indonesians, characteristics that they value highly and perceive as distinguishing themselves from many other (non‐Chinese) Indonesians.